Carrying the Burden
by TheseViolentDesires
Summary: In a city populated by criminals and scum, it was only inevitable that the two supercriminals would someday meet. Nolan!verse Batman, eventual Joker/Crane. Rating may change.


_"Just paint the picture of a perfect place  
They got it better than what anyone's told you  
They'll be the King of Hearts, and you're the Queen of Spades  
Then we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers."_

_ - "All the Right Moves", One Republic_

* * *

Jonathan couldn't remember the last time he'd slept. Not that it would have made a difference if he could; he wouldn't have known what day or time it had been anyway. Arkham Asylum always had done its best to make the days blur together, second after agonizing second of white wall, minute after minute of the thoughts in his head running too fast for him to keep up with, hour after hour of the screams from down the hall. Sleep in Arkham could either be a place of great safety and peace, or the most horrifying hell imaginable. For Jonathan, the majority of the time it was neither – usually the only 'sleep' he got was in the form of a sedative, injected none-too-gently into the crook of his arm. The rare occasions he did manage to pass out from exhaustion naturally, however, it was most definitely the latter. Even before the Batman had gotten hold of him on that awful night in the Narrows, he never had had dreams. Only nightmares.

Only fitting for the resident master of fear, he supposed, laying back down on the pathetic excuse for a cot in his cell, an arm flung over his eyes to block out the light. Even though it had to be the middle of the night – he'd worked out at least some sort of system to tell the time by remembering when the guards' shifts changed – Arkham never went dark. The lights dimmed slightly, but never went out fully. Of course not. As if being imprisoned wasn't enough, there had to be bright lights eternally shining in your face.

Idly Jonathan wondered if that might affect the minds of patients with Messiah complexes, then set it aside to be contemplated later, once he had the chance to test it.

His attention was drawn to the window set in the cell door by cheers. While it was true Jonathan shared his cell block with the sort of imbeciles who really should have been in Blackgate rather than Arkham – never mind that he'd probably put them in here – even they weren't idiotic enough to call out like that at night without a reason. Finding out just what that reason might be was what drew Jonathan from the cot to the little window. Of course, a 20 centimetre by 20 centimetre pane of thick glass hardly allowed one to see more than a few metres of the hall outside. He couldn't see a thing, and despite still being able to hear their cheers and harsh instructions from what were most certainly orderlies, made the decision to lay down and try his luck at counting the cracks in the ceiling again.

This idea was pushed aside, however, by the sudden realization that there was a face staring in at him.

For a moment he was frozen, caught in the black gaze that watched him. His mind numbly acknowledged who this person – was it a person or a monster? – was, but his body couldn't react fast enough to make it seem as though he wasn't absolutely terrified. An absence of makeup and a bruised face couldn't hide the identity of this man. The Joker.

Surely no one could blame him for his reaction; he fell backwards, watching in horror as the face was pulled away, the unmistakeable laughter filling the cell and seeming to suffocate him. _Oh, God._

_Well done, Jonny, _mocked the Scarecrow inside his head. _The so-called 'Master of Fear' proves how terrifying he truly is._

_Shut up, _Jonathan replied, straightening up.

_No, really, do you think they'll be telling stories about how the good doctor had the Joker in hysterics at the very sight of him?_

_I'm not a doctor anymore. _It was the only response he could think of, and winced as soon as it was thought. Why did his mind have to be so ridiculously unintelligent at the worst of times? His defeat by the Batman had been enough to nearly ruin him; joining the lowest of the low as a drug dealer – for research purposes, he told himself, that was the only reason – had all but stripped him of his status as one of Gothams' so called 'super criminals'. A few failed attempts to regain his former glory had landed him here again, in Arkham, and here he stayed, waiting for the opportunity to break out once more. Though, Jonathan didn't really mind the protection truly, even if he would never admit it. Orderlies had quickly grown bored of beating him, besides the few who still appeared in his cell at night. He enjoyed hearing their stories – a wife driven mad by the toxin, a family killed by maniacs on what was now known as 'Fear Night'.

Really, you'd think some of them worked at Arkham only to beat those weaker than them.

Scarecrow, however, was not content to sit and wait for opportunity to arise. Had Jonathan ever given him control, they would have been out of Arkham right now, and terrorising the Narrows right now, as the ex-doctor was frequently reminded.

Though presently, no matter what his other half wanted, they were stuck, in what was politely referred to as hell. Taking a seat on the cot and cringing at the uncomfortableness of it, he rested his head in his hands. Even as a doctor he'd hated the cell design; while it provided an easy space to carry out his experiments, it was too dull, lifeless, with an almost smothering atmosphere that surely couldn't be helpful to the process of curing broken minds. _Not that Arkham was any good at that in the first place, _Jonathan thought, smirking despite himself. The asylum, from the start, had never had a good track record at resolving the issues that plagued the consciousness and subconsciousness of its inmates.

Now that the clown had been dragged away by the orderlies, the cell block had calmed down slightly. Jonathan took a deep breath, eyes flicking back and forth between the window in the door and the floor at his white rubber shoes; the sounds of his neighbours still cheering slightly past the orders to calm down reached his ears. _Really, how persistent could they be?_ Though, he supposed, if they had worked for the Joker, surely they couldn't be sane. And from his experiences with a certain paranoid schizophrenic known as Thomas Schiff and several others, insane usually equalled persistent.

Perhaps now that the excitement had died down, he might be able to attempt sleep again, though he doubted it. He shifted around, resuming his earlier position, trying his best to block out the light. The encounter with the Joker, no matter how short or meaningless it had been, plagued his mind. How had the clown known where Jonathans' cell had been?

_It was a lucky guess,_ Scarecrow scolded him. _He wanted to cause a commotion, so he did. It isn't feasible to assume he knew it was our cell._

_Why wouldn't he take an interest in the criminal who preceded him?_

_He took our place as the super criminal of the city, didn't he? There's no place for us. He took our status from us._

* * *

It was raining again. In Gotham, it never seemed to stop, an infinite supply of water falling in large drops from a sky clouded with pollution. Jim Gordon had long ago given up carrying an umbrella; he preferred sprinting through the rain as he was now to tediously folding and unfolding an umbrella each time he stepped outside. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he finally made it to the entrance of Arkham Asylum, wincing away from the spotlights that seemed to shine from every corner of the roof. After Fear Night, the asylum had received a heavy donation from Wayne Industries, but from what he'd heard, they hadn't put it to good use in regards to upping security.

As he stepped inside, he could hear the staff working overtime; he jumped back as a cart carrying an unidentified patient rushed past him. They were still dealing with the overload of admissions after the GCPD had finally managed to take down Joker and his goons. Several police officers milled around on the other side of the room, looking lost, having obviously been dismissed by the staff. Arkham always had been that way, unwilling to get the police involved unless there was a break out, keeping things to themselves.

The secretive nature had caused more than a few headaches for the city over the years. If the association running the asylum had not turned a blind eye to the bribery and corruption running rife among the orderlies and other staff, perhaps Cranes' plan wouldn't have gone as far as it did.

But still, they didn't change, despite promises to the contrary.

The police Commissioner, running a hand through his thinning hair, stepped up to the reception desk. "I'm here to see Quincy Sharp," he said.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait," the nurse stationed there began, seeming irritated, "As you can see, we're all very busy, and if you don't have an – oh." She finally looked up at him, recognition showing on her face. "Commissioner Gordon, of course…" The unfortunate woman, realizing her mistake, trailed off. Gordon took pity on her; it was obvious she had no idea what to do with him. "Mr Sharp's busy with the one of the _new inmates_ presently. Did you have an appointment with him?" Even without her emphasis, he would have known exactly which 'new inmate' she was referring to.

"Ma'am, I think this is the sort of occasion that doesn't require an appointment," he stated simply, watching as she backpedalled, apologizing. He felt sorry for her, sure, but he still needed to do his job. Speaking to Quincy Sharp likely wouldn't make a difference in how the clown was contained, but it was necessary.

And once he was done, he was going to go home for the first time in days, and sleep for… Around two hours, if he left soon, before he had to get up and go deal with the paperwork.

But until then, God help the poor bastards stuck with the clown.

* * *

The aforementioned 'poor bastards' were now seriously cursing their luck in life. Before they'd even made it past searching the clown, he'd been causing trouble. An orderly had the teeth marks and bandages around his finger to prove that. For someone whose teeth were rotting away, he sure could bite hard enough. Though, they should have known better than putting their fingers near his mouth. As the Joker had remarked – _Honestly, how long ya been working with the crazies?_

What followed was a sincerely puzzling body search, during which the sheer amount and variety of weapons pulled from the madmans' pockets had the orderlies both raising their eyebrows and cringing as they imagined what the implement might have been used for.

_A potato peeler, for crying out loud_, thought one. _What the hell do you do with a potato peeler?_

His mind answered the question with images he shoved away, gagging.

The Joker giggled as they stripped him of his suit, the lewd comments leaving him enough to turn even a psychopath off, and tossed him the Arkham uniform – "Oh, orange never _was _my colour," – to change into. Seemingly unaffected with their silence but aware of their growing fury, he continued to chatter away, stretching the sounds and clipping the ends of words in ways that made his train of thought seem more erratic than it already did. He objected strongly to his makeup being removed, but other than that – and the finger incident – he caused no trouble.

"_So,_" he drawled with a grin as they led him down the halls to high security, "When do we sta-_art_ with the, _uh_, beating?"

Oh, so he wasn't an idiot, then? Along the corridor lay the blind spot between two security cameras so often taken advantage of by orderlies in need of some 'physical therapy', as they put it. But in this case, they had a reason, as they had with Crane, to swing their fists.

"Now, now, _boys_, d'ya really – _really _– wanna do this? After that little, _uh, _in-ci-den_t_, well…" He laughed with all the delight of a small child as he was slammed against the wall, a meaty hand gripping the front of his uniform. His eyes flickered down to read the nametag. "Hey, _Carl_," he greeted, at the same time a fist knocked his face sideways. "Wanna play?" he challenged, lifting his head again, eyes glinting.

As the orderly made to hit him a second time, the clown craned his neck and leaned forwards to sink his teeth into the mans' arm. In the same moment, he lifted his cuffed hands and slipped them through the confined space between the two men to grab hold of Carls' face.

There was a sickening sound, like a slug being crushed under someones' shoe, as his thumbs drove into both of Carls' eyes. The unfortunate orderly raised his hands to his face, screaming in pain, and dropped Joker. Carls' colleagues rushed forward, weapons raised, but the clown merely stood still, gore smeared hands up in surrender, a pleased grin on his face.

And so began the Jokers' stay in Arkham.

* * *

AN: And there goes the first chapter! It's up now, so I guess I can't change that. This is my first chaptered Joker/Crane fic, and I hope I can continue it and that you all enjoy it!


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